{"id":37,"date":"2009-09-15T06:16:17","date_gmt":"2009-09-15T11:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=37"},"modified":"2009-09-15T06:16:17","modified_gmt":"2009-09-15T11:16:17","slug":"closing-libraries-in-the-city-of-brotherly-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2009\/09\/15\/closing-libraries-in-the-city-of-brotherly-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Closing Libraries in the City of Brotherly Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/images\/library.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"333\" \/>The first library I remember was the library inside Washington Elementary School in Mundelein, Illinois. Each week, I looked forward to walking down the hall and to the library, where I could check out anything I wanted.<\/p>\n<p>Some of my favorites:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A series about different animals. It was fiction about wild animals (I can&#8217;t remember what they were called). The books were short, there were a lot of them, and I couldn&#8217;t read enough of them.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charlie_and_the_chocolate_factory\"><em>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory<\/em><\/a> and <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charlie_and_the_Great_Glass_Elevator\">Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator<\/a>, <\/em>by Roald Dahl.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Where_the_red_fern_grows\"><em>Where the Red Fern Grows<\/em><\/a>, by Wilson Rawls.<\/li>\n<li><em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dandelion_Wine\">Dandelion Wine<\/a>, <\/em>by Ray Bradbury<em>.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Call_Of_The_Wild\"><em>The Call of the Wild<\/em><\/a>, by Jack London.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When I got my own library card for the city library, I felt like I had joined an exclusive club. I still remember the first book I checked out: <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sam,_Bangs_and_Moonshine\">Sam, Bangs &amp; Moonshine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In the mid 90s, I worked in a<a href=\"http:\/\/www.grapevinetexas.gov\/IndividualDepartments\/Library\/tabid\/101\/Default.aspx\"> library<\/a>. Each week, children and adults waited in line, holding handfuls of books they couldn&#8217;t wait to get home and read.<\/p>\n<p>Too bad people in parts of <a href=\"http:\/\/libwww.freelibrary.org\/closing\/\">Philadelphia<\/a> may not have that opportunity come October 2.<\/p>\n<p>If a city as important to America&#8217;s history as Philadelphia loses many of their libraries and ends many of its programs, we lose a little something as a nation, don&#8217;t you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first library I remember was the library inside Washington Elementary School in Mundelein, Illinois. Each week, I looked forward to walking down the hall and to the library, where I could check out anything I wanted. Some of my favorites: A series about different animals. It was fiction about wild animals (I can&#8217;t remember [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[57,56],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}